SOURCE: York, Lorraine M. “Whirling Blindfolded in the House of Woman: Gender Politics in the Poetry and Fiction of Michael Ondaatje.” Essays in Canadian Writing, no. 53 (summer 1994): 71-91.

In the following essay, York investigates the thematic importance of gender issues—particularly as they relate to questions of ownership—in Ondaatje's poetry and fiction, observing a heightened sensitivity toward gender relations in Ondaatje's later work.

In his introduction to Spider Blues: Essays on Michael Ondaatje, Sam Solecki lists a few “approaches to Ondaatje's work not included [in the volume] because not yet written”: Ondaatje as dramatist, Ondaatje's humour, stylistic analyses, Ondaatje as film-maker (9). He gives the final pride of place, however, to psycho-analytical criticism, mainly because of what he calls “the centrality of the father” in Ondaatje's writing: “I suspect it's only from that direction that someone will deal adequately with the radical darkness at the heart of Ondaatje's...